Floating Islands and Marriage Proposals

This weekend we took a night bus to Puno, which is the town bordering Lake Titicaca (the highest lake in the world and the second largest lake in South America). After having paid just £2.50 extra each way for luxury seats, expectations for said luxury were not high. However we were VERY pleasantly surprised to discover fully reclining leather seats with ample leg room complete with foot rest and in bus entertainment of a movie playing. We arrived in Puno at 4 in the morning and went to a hotel for a couple of hours of rest before starting our tour. We were in a group of 9, 8 of us volunteers from the house in Cusco and one man who had limited social skills despite his claims that in his job "he specializes in communicating with people"...

Example conversation (during lunch on day 2):
We are sitting on a cafe terrace overlooking lake Titicaca with everyone on our tour, the lunch is either omelette or trout. Conversation arises concerning fish as Annie dislikes it intensely. Someone mentions that not eating fish can be bad for you:
Annie - "yeah i know, i heard about this terrible neck disease you can get if you don't eat fish, where your neck swells up an abnormal amount and never returns to its normal size. That's why i eat a fish finger every now and again.
Strange Man - "I don't think that's true." *looks proud of his "knowledge" and returns to eating*
A slightly taken aback Annie - "No, it is definitely true, i studied it in chemistry."
Strange Man - "No, you are wrong"
Annie - "oh..!" *looks shocked at rudeness of strange man...*

He had also previously claimed that as a graphic designer his "skill set" was COMPLETELY different from 'you lot' despite the fact that one of the other volunteers has a degree in graphic design...

Anyway, in the morning we took a boat to the floating islands of Uros, which are made entirely of reeds. The trip involved a demonstration of how to build an island and what to do if you dislike your neighbours (saw off their part of the island and paddle away to a new location. Simple.). After spending some time here, including a ride on a reed boat around the collection of islands we headed off to our accommodation for the night, 2 and a half hours away on Amantani Island - this lake is BIG. Upon arriving we were greeted by our host families and taken to their houses, which were built for VERY short peruvian people (even Rebecca had to duck to go through the doors...). We then had lunch with the family (you have never seen so much potato in all your life, did you know there are 5000 different types in Peru?). After lunch we hiked to the highest point on the island Pachamama and arrived at the top just in time to see the sun set over the lake. It was beautiful, pictures don't really do it justice.

We then climbed back down and enjoyed hot chocolate and baileys in a small hut before returning to our houses for another carbohydrate filled dinner - rice, potato AND pasta. After dinner our host family took great delight in treating us like dolls and dressing us up in traditional peruvian clothing. (See photos). We were then taken to the most happening discoteca on the island (a barn) and partook in traditional dancing with the locals. It was hilarious. Some of us (Annie) were perhaps a tad over enthusiastic with regards to the dancing.

The following day we were taken to Taquili island, famous for the quality of its hand woven textiles. We had lunch here and then got back on the boat for the 3 and a half hour journey to Puno. Entertainment in Puno was somewhat limited, however we managed to find a lovely restaurant after fighting off various local women trying to force us to purchase various hats, gloves and finger puppets. Rebecca tried alpaca (Annie tentatively took a bite), which turned out to be a confused mixture of beef and pork, but was fairly pleasant.

Next the night bus back to Cusco in our posh seats. Thankfully we had cancelled our placement for Monday as we arrived at 4am so we were able to sleep in, then in a cultured way get a full english breakfast and cup of tea from our new favourite cafe in Cusco. Monday evening entailed a big night out with the other volunteers, which turned out to be COMPLETELY free. When you go to the main plaza in Cusco their are loads of representatives from each of the clubs who hand you free drinks vouchers. A great night.

Today there was a transport strike. So after our heavy night we were awoken by some kind of protesting parade outside our window. There was no traffic on the roads and no buses so we were unable to go to our placement. So we had a very relaxing day involving ANOTHER trip to the cafe for tea and cake and  then a trip to San Blas to find the hippies who do hair braiding. This started out perfectly normally, we located our hippies, chose our colours and sat down to begin the process. During this time Rebecca was told it was fine to have two boyfriends if one of them was in Peru and one in England, Annie was proposed to, we were both offered cocaine and or marijuana and we were invited to various parties involving "naked art" (ambiguous meaning - whilst he described he began to take off Annie's cardigan to demonstrate...). Needless to say we were out of there as quickly as possible, which was not actually that quick as they explained they'd take a long time on the braids in order to talk to us for longer. On the plus this meant a good couple of hours of spanish practice. Every creepy cloud has a shiny silver lining.

Tonight we are heading out again (NOT with creepy hippy peruvian men) as transport strike lasts 2 days so again no placement tomorrow.

Annie doing the peruvian dance

Rebecca doing the Peruvian dance

The group in peruvian dress!

The luxurious bed bus!

The Uros islands

A reed boat

 At the top of our hike

Lots of love

Annie and Rebecca